Our great shared national experience is about to come around again.

No, not the Super Bowl, although that's coming up, too.

It's the shared national experience that made household names of Simon and Randy and brought Paula back from obscurity. It's the shared experience that also made household names of Kelly and Justin, Clay and Ruben, Fantasia, Bo and Carrie and Taylor.

It's the shared national experience whose participants one year decided to eliminate early the woman who might win an Academy Award this year - for a singing role.

Yes, it's the sixth edition of "American Idol." But unless you've been steering completely clear of television and shopping centers, or unless you simply don't care (which is fine - keep reading, please), you already knew it starts Tuesday.

(And you already knew the last names, but just to be on the safe side: Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul, Kelly Clarkson, Justin Guarini, Clay Aiken, Ruben Studdard, Fantasia Barrino, Carrie Underwood, Bo Bice and Taylor Hicks.)

There was a time when many of the mass media experiences in this country, radio and television, were shared experiences. We had a handful of television shows to view, a limited number of songs to hear thanks to Top 40 radio. In this time of fragmented and targeted programming and audiences, those days are long gone.

The closest thing we have to a shared experience in media these days, for the most part, is film. Yet in 2006, only the second "Pirates of the Caribbean" film drew as many eyes as any episode of "American Idol" will.

Let's be clear - this isn't a call for the return of three television networks (plus PBS, if you're lucky) and limited playlists on every radio

station that plays music. (Each station's playlist is limited enough as it is now. At least with targeted formats, there's a little bit of variety available in the midst of those limitations.)

What's fascinating is that one of the country's most popular events now - one that can produce all of these people we know by their first names - is a talent contest that isn't really a talent contest. It's closer to a beauty and personality contest, with a little bit of singing thrown in. (How many truly unattractive men have you seen on the show in its five seasons? How many overweight women?)

"American Idol" has also added a handful of things to our culture, some of which we'd be better off without. We could have gone years and been satisfied without the introduction of "dog" as a mainstream term. And did anyone who ever discussed the tonal quality of a person's voice use the term "pitchy" prior to "Idol"?

Then there's the Jennifer Hudson case. Hudson finished seventh in the third season, the year Fantasia Barrino won. The elimination of the Chicago native was surrounded by controversy; all three African-American females in the third season were in the elimination round the week Hudson was booted. Guest Elton John threw out accusations of racism.

Things have worked out for Hudson, though. You'll be able to see her on film today as "Dreamgirls" opens in Decatur. Hudson has been piling up awards all winter and is a favorite for an Oscar for best supporting actress.

"American Idol" is an anomaly among television shows. Its audience has grown throughout its five seasons. And most interestingly, it's not a show that has a huge audience in the shadows. Its buzz factor and morning-after importance are huge. It's one of the few shows that has become a talked-about event in the workplace.

Credit creators who understand what the audience wants to see and FOX-TV's impressive marketing. They began running commercials for the upcoming season in November. They wallpapered shopping malls with the show's logo and the reminder of the Jan. 16 start.

Every record Kelly Clarkson or Tyler Hicks sells and every Carrie Underwood or Clay Aiken concert ticket that gets purchased acts as a commercial for the program.

Most importantly, "American Idol" has managed to escape the morass of reality television and become its own world.

If you believe in something enough, that thing can become what you believe it is. For 30 million Americans, "American Idol" is a true talent show, a place where the best win out, dreams come true and WE make our own stars.

It's proof that no matter how much cultural observers want to accuse the public of being jaded, cynical or ironic, there's a number of folks who - for at least a couple of hours a week - want to believe the best about themselves and others.

Except for that Simon.

Tim Cain can be reached at timcain@herald-review.com or 421-6908.